Five Days and Counting...

I did it. I published my first book on Amazon, "Shoulder Surgery Recovery." I pushed the publish button on Kindle Direct Publishing around 12:15 am Friday morning. I was so wired that I had actually put my book up that I couldn't go to sleep until 4:00 am. Kindle Direct Publishing sends you a little notice as soon as you push the publish button. It says your book will take about 12 hours to actually appear for sale on the Amazon site. I didn't understand. My husband explained that someone or something (a robot with a cup of coffee and his feet up in a recliner) was actually scanning the book. The next morning, he tried to wake me up. "Your book is up! Come look!" "Sleeping..." I moaned. And didn't move for the next 4 hours. When I finally got some coffee and dragged myself over to the computer, it was really cool to see it up there.

Then I noticed this big pit in my stomach. An weird emptiness. It was like my child had left to start his own life and I had nothing to look forward to. I had empty bookshelf syndrome. I needed a new project and fast. My husband said, "you need to take a week off. You have been going pedal to the metal getting this book done. You've been hunched over the computer for weeks. Take a walk. Do some yoga. Spend some time with me." So for twelve hours I wandered the house, doing chores, feeding people, walking the Fluffmonster--until I couldn't take it anymore. I went to my computer and started outlining four more projects, then two more.

I was deep into plumping up the character descriptions in my new action/adventure mystery series, when he caught me. He didn't say anything, but later I found the above note on my computer. Sigh. One week isn't that long...and blog posts don't count!